Man Tried to Engineer Sex, Suicides, Police Say

A man who used an Internet chat room allegedly to try to set up a mass suicide on Valentine’s Day had been trying to persuade women for at least five years to engage in sex acts with him and then kill themselves, a county sheriff said.

Gerald Krein is charged with solicitation to commit murder, and prosecutors are expected to add an attempted manslaughter charge today, Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger said.

Krein, 26, told investigators he had been in contact with 31 women, authorities said. He was arrested Wednesday at his mother’s home in Klamath Falls. He moved to Oregon about a year ago from the Sacramento area, Evinger said.

No deaths have been linked to Krein.